Council backs revamp of sports equipment

The South West Sports Centre will receive $750,000 to provide state-of-the-art fitness equipment to gym users.

Bunbury City Council approved the lease with Alleasing at last Tuesday’s council meeting.

Mayor Gary Brennan said the leases were over a period of four and six years and included the removal of old equipment with ongoing maintenance of new equipment.

“By offering to potential suppliers, in this case the leasing company, a fairly large amount of money, they can do a really good deal for us,” he said.

“The business case has demonstrated that we are in front and the community benefits from getting new gear.”

South West Sports Centre senior health and fitness officer Mark Brown said it was part of the bigger picture to provide quality equipment and facilities to gym users at the sports centre.

“The RPM room will receive new bikes and the group fitness centre will benefit from the upgraded materials,” he said.

“New carpet will also be installed and we are looking at revamping the layout to create a floor plan that is more practical and inviting for users.

“The new equipment is central to the upgrade and is virtually a complete turnover of our current apparatus.”

Mr Brown said some extra high demand equipment and some speciality machines would also be added to the mix.

“Some of the machines in the gym and RPM room were past their use-by date so we had to look at a financially responsible way of replacing these and updating our other equipment,” he said.

Early next year a $35,000 makeover of the centre’s cafe will be undertaken following the installation of the new equipment.